****Cops' Critic Can Keep Dorset Police Domain Names

MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA, 2001 OCT 25 (NB) -- By Steven Bonisteel, Newsbytes. The referee in a domain-name dispute between the police department for Dorset County in the U.K. and one of its harsh critics has ruled that gadfly Gerry Coulter has a right to use the Internet addresses DorsetPolice.com and DorsetPolice.net as his soapbox.

The decision, under a speedy dispute-resolution procedure of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), allows Coulter, from the small town of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, to keep the addresses from which he promises to expose alleged police corruption related to the theft of his own Jeep.

ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Police (UDRP) has been used to decide thousands of cases since it was launched nearly two years ago. And those cases have include many spats between organizations and their critics, with the critics - even those using domains as bizarre as Guinness-Beer-Really-Really-Sucks.com - usually losing.

But there have been only a handful of UDRP cases involving complaints filed by government agencies, and Washington, D.C.-based attorney Stephen Sturgeon, who represented Coulter, said the Dorset Police dispute was the first to focus on criticism of a public agency.

Mike Rodenbaugh, a U.S.-based arbitrator assigned to the Dorset Police case, ruled that there was a "general, legitimate interest in allowing citizens to use descriptive domain names to publish criticism about their government."

But Rodenbaugh, assigned by Canada-based eResolution, one of four organizations authorized to process UDRP complaints, also made it clear that the Dorset Police failed to mount a robust offense.

The force failed to cite any of the many examples of critics evicted from so-called protest domain names, while Coulter's defense included references to wins by critics in the UDRP spats over Bridgestone-Firestone.net and BritanniaBuildingSociety.org.

Rodenbaugh said in his written decision that the defense of free speech over any trademark rights outlined in that pair of cases was "even more poignant in this case involving a governmental entity."

The arbitrator noted that the Dorset Police focused its case on the content of Coulter's Web sites, which they described as offensive and "directed towards making an allegation that Dorset Police (are) Jews or Freemasons and then seeking to criticize the organization on that basis."

But Rodenbaugh ruled that, even though Coulter's site seems to have been always "under construction," the evidence suggested it had "continuously been used to criticize the Dorset Police."

On his Web site, Coulter says he plans to expose shenanigans behind the repeated theft of his vehicles, incidents he alleges have something to do with a relative of a Dorset Police staffer.

In its UDRP complaint, the Dorset Police reported that Coulter had even offered to sell the addresses to them for 100,000 pounds - a high-ball offer that is regularly seen as evidence of the kind of bad faith that helps define cybersquatting.

However, Rodenbaugh pointed out that Coulter said he chose his price based on what he figured his dispute with police over his Jeep had cost him, thus offering an alternative explanation for the high figure.

"It is undisputed that the grievances between the parties have a lengthy history, involving substantial costs on both sides," the arbitrator wrote. "In this context, (I find) that the offer was made to settle all of (Coulter's) grievances with the complainant, and not just this domain name dispute."

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com/ .

17:14 CST

(20011025/WIRES ONLINE, LEGAL, BUSINESS/DOTNAMELAW/PHOTO)